This invention pertains to catalytic hydroconversion of hydrocarbon feed materials derived by chemical digestion from organic municipal solid waste (MSW) materials. It pertains particularly to a process for catalytic hydroconversion of such chemically digested organic-MSW feed materials, either alone or blended with heavy oils and/or particulate coal, to produce desirable low boiling hydrocarbon liquid products particularly useful as fuels.
Great quantities of municipal solid waste (MSW) materials are continuously generated in the United States as well as in other developed countries and require appropriate disposal methods, such as usually by incineration or dumping in landfills. Such MSW materials include varying percentages of both organic and inorganic material portions. A process for treating such MSW materials to first concentrate the organic material portion by density separation in a suitable liquid medium, followed by digestion of the organic portion in the same or similar liquid medium to produce unique digested hydrocarbon fuel products has been disclosed in my co-filed U.S. Pat. No. 6,000,639. Although such carbonaceous fuel products derived from organic-MSW materials can be used as clean heavy liquid slurry or solid fuels, it is also desirable to further catalytically hydroconvert this unique heavy carbonaceous material to produce higher value low boiling hydrocarbon liquid products which are useful as transportation fuels. Also, such heavy hydrocarbon materials derived from organic-MSW could be advantageously mixed with and catalytically co-processed together with petroleum residua and/or particulate coal and/or mixed waste plastics to produce similar desirable low-boiling hydrocarbon liquid products useful as transportation fuels.
Catalytic co-processing of blended coal and petroleum residua feedstocks to produce hydrocarbon liquid products is generally known, as is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,504 to Chervenak et al and U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,111 to MacArthur et al. Also U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,722 to Monnier et al discloses a catalytic hydroconversion process for selected biomass liquid carboxylate feed materials such as blended tall oils, wood oils, animal fats and such fatty acids to produce specific light hydrocarbon liquid products. However, a suitable process for catalytic hydroconversion of unique hydrocarbon feed materials from chemically digested organic-MSW sources for producing desirable lower-boiling hydrocarbon liquid products has not been previously available.